


been on fire (dreaming of you)

by hufflepuffkaspbrak



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Everyone lives, First Kiss, Fix It Fic, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, also this has hardly any dialogue i'm sorry it's just a lot of feelings, richie cries a lot because he just has a lot of emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuffkaspbrak/pseuds/hufflepuffkaspbrak
Summary: "Richie always has to watch the brunette die in his arms, he always wakes up sobbing, feeling a confession on his lips that never makes it out."





	been on fire (dreaming of you)

**Author's Note:**

> finally uploading my fix it fic because i have so many emotions

Richie Tozier is a frequent victim of nightmares. For as long as he could remember, he would wake up at least four times a week in a cold sweat, his breathing heavy and his heart thumping loudly in his chest. Sometimes he could remember what had happened, other times without any memories of what his dream-self had experienced.

He tells people that it’s been happening _“as long as he can remember”_ because, if he was being honest with himself, he couldn’t quite remember if he had had them as a kid. Everything before the age of around 16 was blurry, like he had lived all those years without his glasses. He knows he grew up in Maine, but sometimes the name of the town escapes him. He thinks it started with a _‘D’_ but it’s been so long he isn’t sure. He could vaguely remember what his childhood house looked like. Two stories. Blue and white. Simple. He thinks the town had some sort of body of water he liked to swim in and a railroad track that ran through it.

He knows he had friends. This he is absolutely certain of. Sometimes, when he’s calm and relaxed, hazy memories of these friends will make their way into his brain. He can hear laughter and can see smiles. He can feel the warmth of love and admiration build up in his chest. He can’t ever seem to make out any faces, just the emotions that they felt.

However, there’s one friend that is clearest out of everyone. A boy. Shorter than himself. Brown hair. Richie thinks he was funny because the emotions associated with this friend are always laughter and joy. His stomach always clenches, and his heart drops when he thinks about the laughter, but he can never figure out why. Sometimes, he’d sit in his bed, head in his hands, just trying to remember more about him.

Richie believes that these friends are the reason he has nightmares.

Well, to be fair, it’s not all the nightmares. He still gets the occasional _“Oh no, I’m getting eaten by a shark”_ or _“Oh no, I showed up to class without pants on”_, which he doesn’t understand because he’s been out of school for years now. But it makes him think he’s not all the way crazy.

No, the nightmares that he thinks these friends gave him are more terrifying than the usual, they’re the kind that resonate somewhere deep in your soul, in the very back part of your brain, they manipulate your dream reality so much that you don’t know if you could every get out. Richie sometimes thinks they’re memories, they’re so vivid. But there’s no way.

He’s had many of those kinds. Almost all of them involve his long-lost friends. Sometimes they’re running away from another group of kids, and he can feel the hatred rise up in his chest. Other times there’s a clown involved. The clown is never hazy, never blurry, always front and center and clear as day, with his cracking white face and fiery hair.

One of the reoccurring ones he has involved a giant statue of a man. He can’t quite make out who it is but it’s chasing him, swinging around some sort of tool as a weapon, and he’s running as fast as he can to get away from the statue but he’s regressed into a kid in this dream and he can’t get away.

Another is one that will leave him afraid for days after, sometimes weeks. He’s in a cavern of sorts, it’s grimy and dark. There’s someone to his side and despite not being able to see who it is, he thinks it’s the short brunette kid who makes him happy. But something’s different about them. He can feel it in himself and the other person. Their hearts are heavy, like they’ve been weighed down with so much trauma and fear that they’ve aged 30 years. His body feels old in a traditional sense, too. Much older than in any of the other nightmares he’s had.

The two of them walk down the cavern before he starts sprinting. Then it’s like he’s watching himself from above, like an out of body experience. He sees himself running, picking up a rock and throwing it. When he looks to see where it lands it’s on a hideous monster with the face of the clown but the body of something out of a horror novel. He watches as the monster comes towards him and seems to put him in a trance. He’s floating.

Then the short brunette runs and screams with such fury that Richie himself is startled, he throws something at the monster, knocking it back. Richie gets to watch as he and the brunette celebrate, smiling and laughing before it stabs him in the back.

Richie always has to watch the brunette die in his arms, he always wakes up sobbing, feeling a confession on his lips that never makes it out.

When Richie gets the call from Mike Hanlon _from Derry_, he can’t figure out if it’s a nightmare or not. From the moment he hangs up from the moment walks into the Chinese restaurant in his hometown, he’s suspicious of everything. It’s weird, because everything is hazy, but it also feels like it’s tumbling back. He can start making out the faces he can vaguely remember. He sees two people outside the restaurant and the names _Ben and Bev _fall out of his mouth before he can even realize.

He knows it’s not a nightmare when he walks to their table and he sees him. The short brunette that has caused him so much pain, so much joy, so much anguish and so much laughter, all from within his mind. Memories slap him in the face so hard it stings, and he feels like he’s going to vomit again.

“Eddie Kaspbrak.” He breathes out before he can stop himself. How could he ever have forgotten?

The boy from his memories – man now – smiles at him for a half a second before crossing his arms and pressing his lips into a straight line. Richie stares at him, scanning his face as all the emotions from his memories flood through him. He realizes a lot of the dreams he has are memories as well, as he can start placing the people around him in different scenarios he can now recall happening as a kid.

They sit around the table, joking around and catching up. There’s an empty seat, someone Richie can vaguely remember as Stan is missing, but the dynamic between him and the others still flows naturally. He finds himself constantly bringing Eddie’s attention to him as he realizes that the stomach clenches and the heart drops he always remembered were associated with the fact that he was – _is _– deeply attracted to him. It makes his chest clench uncomfortably, coming to terms with his feelings for him. The boy who he can now remember to be his best friend and first crush has grown up into a man that Richie can’t take his eyes off of.

Richie once again feels like he’s in a nightmare when Mike mentions the clown. Pennywise, he calls it. He now realizes his nightmares, too, were all memories. Chaos ensues for the next several minutes, finding out that Stan wasn’t going to be coming, their damn fortune cookies attacking, the icy cold fear that ran in his body as he tried to get out of the restaurant as quick as possible.

He looks over to Eddie and his throat feels as if it’s closing. The nightmares he had about the clown using him to get to Richie were all real. He doesn’t know if he can face it all again.

“I’m leaving, who’s with me?” Richie announces, quickly deciding that he would rather be as far away from Derry as possible. When Eddie raises his hand, Richie tries to push down the fluttering in his heart.

Back at the inn, he finds out Bev has nightmares too. He also takes one look at Ben and realizes that he also has been sucked back into his preteen crush and is nothing but soft looks and heart eyes. Mike and Bill meet up with them and he decides that maybe they can beat this. If they’re together, they might stand a chance. After all, they are 27 years older than last time.

Richie is reminded of the fear that he felt as a child when he comes face to face with the clown that has haunted him for years. Taunting him about his feelings. Sure, he’d known he wasn’t straight but he had never came out. Not when he was in the public eye like he was. But he’d never felt afraid about it, not like this. Not the deep terror he felt now that made him want to curl up into a ball and cry. Not when the clown was reminding him that he may lose his best friend who only just got back again.

He storms back into the inn, right passed Beverly and Ben and not giving a shit that he seemed to have interrupted something between them. He needed to get out of this shithole, and he needed to get out now.

He’s gathering his things when there’s a knock on his door.

“Fuck off, I’m leaving!” He yells.

The door opens anyways.

“Hey, buddy.” Ben says and he closes the door behind him.

“I’m leaving.” He repeats.

“You can’t.” Ben replies, as if there’s no other option.

“Oh, but I can.” Richie tries to push passed Ben but the other man doesn’t even have to try to get the force to push him back. “Fuck, not all of us work out for a living, be careful with the fragile ones, man.”

“You can’t go,” Ben tugs Richie’s bag off his shoulder and throws it across the room nonchalantly. “We need to finish this together.”

“Oh, Benny boy,” Richie gives him a fake smile. “You don’t even understand what I’m going through right now.”

“I think I understand more than you realize.”

Richie stands still in his tracks as Ben continues.

“You know I liked Beverly back during that summer. After, too.”

“Well you weren’t exactly fucking subtle.” Richie snorted.

Ben just smiled. “And it’s like…being back here, just reminded me why I did. And still do.”

“Once again, not fucking subtle.”

“You know, Pennywise used her against me. Pretended to be her. Pretended to love me.”

Richie lets out an uncomfortable noise. “Shit, man, that sucks.”

“He uses our fears against us. I was, still am, afraid that she’ll find out I love her and she won’t love me back, or she’ll still be into Bill.”

“I don’t see how the hell this has anything to do with me.”

“You love Eddie.”

_Well, shit, _Richie thinks. Ben wasn’t going to hold anything back. Shot that out, clear as anything, with no hesitation. He must’ve seen the look of shock on his face.

Ben smiled again, he always seemed to be smiling no matter the situation. Is always a beacon of happiness in otherwise dark times. “I could tell when we were young. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You have to stop letting Pennywise use that against you.”

“How can I just stop, Ben?” He spat out, feeling exposed. “This is different.”

“It’s love.”

“It’s _gay _love. Me loving him is different!” It felt strange, saying it out loud. _Different_, that’s the word he would most often use to describe himself. No one could understand anything he was going through because he was just so _different._

“It’s still love.” Ben says softly. “And you know me, I’m a sap, and I think it’s great that you love him. So please, stay. If not for any of us, then for Eddie. We all are more likely to survive with you here.”

Ben left. Richie thought about it for a second, before remembering the song the clown had sang for him, and then he quickly fled from the inn, despite Ben’s words.

In a not so extraordinary turn of events, Richie finds himself in the Neibolt house, wading through shitty water, and descending down deeper into the ground. Eddie’s face is bandaged up, having been stabbed straight through the cheek by Bowers. It made him feel good about himself, the fact that he was the one to put the axe through that motherfucker’s head.

“You’re braver than you think.” He tells Eddie, sure that his face is conveying every emotion he’s feeling. He wishes the statement was true about himself. If it was, maybe he could be brave enough to tell Eddie how he felt. But making Eddie feel good about himself is the most important task at hand. He isn’t going to go fight a murderous clown with Eddie feeling worthless, not on his watch.

“Thanks, Richie.”

Richie takes a moment to take in Eddie and everything Eddie is, was, and came to be. He turns around and begins his descent, gripping onto the side of the vertical tunnel with so much strength his knuckles turn white. He’s fucking terrified, but he’ll never admit it.

His body fills with fire when he grips hands with Eddie as they’re all chanting and he can’t tell if it’s because of the feeling of Eddie’s skin against his own or the fact that they all might be dead within minutes.

Even amongst the chaos, he can’t believe he ever forgot Eddie Kaspbrak. They’re screaming, an arm belonging to It behind them and three doors in front and them and Eddie is bickering with him. These could be there final moments and Eddie takes time out of those last breathes to _bicker_ and Richie doesn’t know how much fonder he could be of the man.

It’s when he turns back around that his heart stops for a minute.

Richie swallows hard and looks around. He sees the cavern, the rocks on the wall and the eerie green lighting. He recognizes everything from the shape of the rocks to the distant screaming he can hear. It’s not something he could ever forget. The nightmares had slipped his mind for a moment, caught up in something of a real-life nightmare, but he realizes now that they’re all connected. The monsters in his head and the monsters in front of him all come together to make a living hell.

He’s running and he sees It with Mike, and he picks up a rock on instinct, throwing it.

“Here’s a truth, you’re a sloppy bitch!” He screams, his words seem to be on autopilot. Like someone had already decided what he should do and what he should say. He doesn’t have control over his own actions for the time being.

He forgets for a moment, what this is all about, when he stares into bright lights and feels himself slump over. He doesn’t know where he is. He wants to panic but his body doesn’t move and there isn’t any sound and he can’t see a damn thing. Like his conscious mind is hovering around in the dark cavern that is his body.

When he comes to, Eddie is leaning over him, smiling.

The world moves in slow motion. Richie takes in the scene, the shock and joy in Eddie’s voice, the brightness in his eyes. It’s all so achingly familiar, but not from this angle. He’s watched this before, but this is his first time experiencing it.

“Eddie!” He screams, his brain catching up. He surges forward, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulder and pulling him back, twisting their bodies until they’re painfully tumbling down the rocks into another small cavern. Richie glances up and sees where the claw would have struck. He lets out a shaky breath that sounds more like a relieved sob than anything else.

He’s leaning over Eddie and he looks down to see his shocked face and he laughs. A soft, nervous laugh and he picks Eddie up and cradles him in his arms, burying his face in the other man’s shoulder. Eddie freezes for a moment, clearly confused, before he hugs back, Richie’s tears soaking his shoulder.

They can only stay like that for a handful of seconds before getting back to the matter at hand but Richie feels like he’s on top of the fucking world. He had watched this nightmare play out again and again and again and he could never do a thing about it. About the anguish he felt, about the words he needed to say, about the sheer helplessness that flowed through his body.

But right now, in this moment, in this reality, Eddie is safe.

They defeat It. They scream, they fight, they back it into a corner and make it feel like the one that’s been tormented all these years. Like it’s the one that’s been haunted by memories of people once forgotten and trauma that had been gone through much too young. Richie feels like a heavy part of his soul is free when he takes Its heart into his hands and squeezes. The blood runs through his fingers and the flesh squelches disgustingly but he can’t be bothered. Especially as It screams and he can feel Eddie’s own fingers brushing against his own.

They run as fast as they can afterwards, everything collapsing on top of them. Rocks are falling, threatening to crush them before they can get out. At some point, Eddie grabs a hold of Richie’s hand as they’re running and Richie can’t shake the deep feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be with them. Outside of the Neibolt house, they watch as the place that caused so much terror is destroyed. It falls into itself, being absorbed by the ground until the lot is flat and empty. Richie is still holding onto Eddie’s hand, gripping it so hard as if he’s grounding himself to the reality that they really did get out.

He never in a million years thought that he would be so lucky.

All of them are covered in blood and dirt and grime and tears and Richie can see Eddie started to get twitchy as it dries onto his skin.

“Quarry?” Richie suggested with a soft chuckle. Everyone smiles in agreement.

They’ve added a sign on the cliff. One that deters children from jumping off. He remembers as children they didn’t even think about the dangers of jumping into the not-so-clear water below. He can just remember the freedom he felt as he jumped, his body hurdling through the air as every worry in the world left him. He supposes that people are a lot more cautious about things now than they were in the 80’s.

As an adult, the jump feels just as freeing, but the landing feels just a bit more harsh, the pressure truly coming down on his aging body. Richie is submerged in the water, quickly swimming away so his friends don’t land on top of him. He can already feel all the disgusting sewer residue washing away as he swims to a place he can stand. He turns around and all his friends are swimming towards him and he feels so overwhelmed he might cry.

So, he does.

The tears flow out of him before he can stop himself. It’s 27 years of built up stress that he is now free of. It’s the kind of sobbing he hasn’t done in years. The kind that rips out of him painfully and causes his body to shake. He has his friends around him. The nightmare that started when he was 13 is over. The person that he has continued to love over all those years is safe. Safe from the nightmares that plagued Richie, almost as a warning from some other dimension where they weren’t so lucky, where that Richie couldn’t save that Eddie. But right now, they’re safe.

He feels his friends latch onto him. Beverly is holding onto his arm, Mike is around his shoulder, Ben grips his hand, Bill is at his side. But Eddie, he has his arms wrapped around Richie’s neck, pulling himself into Richie’s chest. His head is resting against Richie and he’s sure he can hear his heart beating fast. Richie feels loved for the first time in a long time. He gets the feeling that the last time he felt this way was the hug they had 27 years before after they thought they had defeated Pennywise the first time.

Richie lets himself cry, engulfed in his friends limbs and completely in love with the feeling of relief.

They eventually let go of each other, but Eddie stays right where he’s put himself. Richie glances down to see him with a soft and content look on his face, much different than the one normally plastered on it. He wraps an arm around the smaller man, pulling him even closer to him, and settles on the rock beneath him, Eddie practically sitting on his lap now.

He looks up to see Ben and Beverly smiling, alternating between pushing each other underwater and giving each other small kisses that are more like grins pressed against each other. Richie feels a deep joy rise up in his chest at the sight. He had known since that day in the alley, Ben cut up and blood dripping down his stomach, Bev smiling brightly at him, that they were meant to be.

Richie looks down at the man in his lap and thinks, maybe they could be meant to be as well. He experimentally presses a kiss into Eddie’s hair and Eddie just smiles. He feels those butterflies rising up in his stomach again like he’s a teenager. He’s tempted to say something, especially when he notices the gold band around Eddie’s finger is no longer there, but it feels like a conversation for later.

Because luckily, they have all the time in the world now.

Richie cries for the second time that day when they get back to the Derry Townhouse to see none other than Stan Uris sitting on the bench outside, a small bag next to him, and his head in his hands. He has bandages around his wrists but otherwise looks unharmed. Bev is the first one to move, screaming and running towards him. She pulls him into a hug that he doesn’t look prepared for, confusion evident across his face.

“What happened to you guys?” He asks.

“It’s you, right? Stan, it’s really you? What happened _to you_?” Bev pulls back but doesn’t let go of him.

“I can’t really remember. I was in some sort of trance. I woke up in the hospital with the bandages around my wrists. The last thing I remember was talking to Mike.” Stan answered, looking up at everyone else. “So, once I got out, I knew I had to come back.”

“But…but Patty,” Bev starts and Richie could see tears running down her face as well. In fact, everyone had red eyes and wet cheeks.

Stan scrunches up his face. “My wife? What about her?”

“I was on the phone with her. She said…well she said you _died_!”

“Well, I’m right here.”

Mike sits down on the bench next to him, looks him up and down. “I think it was one of Pennywise’s tricks. I think It wanted us to believe Stan was gone, maybe it thought it would weaken us enough to not beat him.”

“The clown.” Stan suddenly looks panicked. “Where is it?”

Richie smiles widely through his tears. “We killed that motherfucker.”

“You did what?”

“We killed It. We really did. Crushed his heart, sent him to hell, the whole nine yards.” Richie exclaims.

A goofy grins crosses Stan’s face, the type of smile that only ever appeared when Stan felt completely at ease and happy. “He’s gone?”

“Oh yeah, fucking dead.” Eddie says.

And then they’re all smiling and laughing, the tears long forgotten. They all go into the motel, to the bar that still doesn’t have anyone occupying it. They take turns going up to their rooms to take a proper shower, the quarry didn’t quite get the grime that stuck to their skin. The rest of them sat with Stan, gushing about their lives and in awe of the way Stan talked so happily about his wife and the life he made for himself over the past 27 years. He seemed to be the only one that managed to find a love that can make it through anything.

“No marriages for you guys then?” Stan asks, looking around as he sees there isn’t a wedding ring on anyone else’s fingers. Bev and Eddie grimace, almost simultaneously and Stan seems to realize he hit a sore spot. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry. I just-”

“No, no, don’t apologize.” Eddie cuts him off. “It’s fine, really.”

“It’s just,” Bev pauses, looking for the right words. “A weird subject.”

“I married my mom.” Eddie blurts out and Stan chokes on his drink. “Wait, no! Not like actually!”

“God, Eddie.” Stan coughs roughly.

“Just a woman that is practically my mom. Myra. We’re actually still married.” Eddie rubs the spot where his ring should be. “I took off my ring in the sewers, I realized…I mean, _I knew before_, but I kinda felt brave enough to realize I deserve more. I’m gonna divorce her when I get back.”

Richie tries to hide his smile.

“Also, I’m totally gay and being married to a woman was the worst.”

This time, Richie chokes on his drink.

Everyone laughs and cheers, raising their glasses in a toast to Eddie.

“I married my dad in the same way Eddie married his mom.” Beverly explained. “I left him before I got here though. Besides,” She looks up at Ben with a smile. “I found someone better.”

“My marriage just isn’t working out if I’m being honest.” Bill steps into the room, hair wet from the shower he had just taken. He still has his wedding ring on his finger. “Don’t know what I’m going to do.” He says it all very nonchalantly, causing everyone to laugh, despite the serious topic.

They all talk until they’re tired. Richie thinks he could talk to them forever. He doesn’t think he could ever get sick of the sounds of their voices, their laughter, the feeling of all seven of them being in a room together again is something he won’t ever take for granted.

As they retreat to their rooms, he watches Ben and Bev not-so-secretly go to the same room. Richie says goodnight to everyone, lingering on Eddie, and debates inviting him to his room before he decides against it.

He’s laying down on his bed, just in his pajama pants, staring up at the twirling of the ceiling fan. He can’t get his eyes to close for more than a couple of minutes, not nearly long enough to actually drift off into any sort of sleep. His body is pumping full of so much adrenaline over the events of the day he doesn’t think he can fall asleep for another couple of days. A knock of the door tells him that someone else can’t get any sleep either.

He opens the door to see Eddie with a small, shy smile on the other side.

“Eds!” Richie nearly yells before he can stop himself. “What can I do for you?”

He sees Eddie glance at his bare chest and he feels insecure all of a sudden. “I couldn’t sleep,” He answered. “Figured you couldn’t either.”

“You thought right.” He smiles and lets Eddie into the room.

Richie starts going through his things, trying to find a clean shirt to put on.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks.

“Trying to find a shirt, so I can be modest.”

“Don’t.” Eddie says and Richie turns around quickly. “You don’t have to, it’s fine.”

Richie can’t tell if he’s seeing things or not, but he swears he can see a blush rising up on Eddie’s face. “Okay.” He swallows hard.

Eddie sits on his bed and Richie has to stop his internal freak out. He reverts back to being 13 and going crazy because _“Oh, cute boy in my bed!”_.

Eddie takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” Richie walks towards him but doesn’t let himself sit on the bed with him, just looks down at his sitting form.

“I said I’m gay.”

“Yeah,” Richie smiles. “That’s great that you realized that. Maybe you’ll be happier without that terrible wife of yours.”

The corner of Eddie’s lips twitch. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

He runs a hand through his hair and Richie watches and wonders how soft Eddie’s hair would feel beneath his fingers. Eddie being gay brings a whole new level to his inner crisis. Because Eddie could possibly be an option now. Before, it was hopeless pining over a man with a wife that Richie could never have a chance with. Now, it’s almost too real, too possible.

Eddie continues. “I don’t know how it took me so long. I think knew before? Like, before I left Derry, I never had crushes on girls. I always thought guys looked better. One guy in particular. But then when I left, I forgot, and got stuck with my mom.”

“Hey! Your mom’s not that bad, don’t talk about my lover that way.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rich.” Eddie snaps on instinct and they both smile at the familiarity of it all.

“You know I like guys, too.” Richie feels as if a huge burden has been lifted off his chest. He’s never said it out loud before and it feels just as good as when they had killed that clown.

“Yeah?” Eddie looks up and smiles widely.

“I knew before I left, too. Had some crushes. It…It had used it to torment me before. This time around, too. I was always afraid I was dirty.” Richie says, not even realizing that he’s crying for the third time that day. God, where were all these tears coming from.

Eddie stands up and wraps his arms around Richie’s torso, pulling him into a hug. Richie returned it, resting his chin on the top of Eddie’s head.

“I was always so afraid to touch anyone, to look at anyone. It made me hate myself.” He sniffled. “Especially because…well because there was this one boy that I couldn’t get out of my head and I couldn’t have him.”

“You’re not dirty.” Eddie tells him, his voice muffled a bit from his face being in Richie’s chest. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“You’re awfully wise for a fresh gay.” Richie jokes and he can feel Eddie laugh.

Eddie looks up, causing Richie to move his head and look down at him. They’re still hugging. Eddie has a look in his eyes that Richie doesn’t recognize. “I just know that there can’t be anything wrong with this. Love can’t be wrong. Not when it makes me feel so good.”

“Love? Who’s got Eddie Spaghetti’s heart?” Richie asks and tries to stop his throat closing up at the possibility of Eddie being in love with someone. At the possibility that he has to go on and watch Eddie and this guy have a great life together.

Eddie grimaces at the nickname but answers anyway. “He’s the only guy who had my heart for pretty much my whole life. I remember crushes here or there, but this guy…I’d die for.”

“Don’t joke about dying, Eds.” The comment hits a bit too close for Richie’s comfort, thinking about the nightmares he had in which he did watch Eddie die.

“I would though."

Richie’s palms begin to sweat and his heart speeds up, suddenly aware that he’s still touching Eddie so closely.

“What about you?” Eddie asks, changing the topic but only slightly. “Who has Richie Tozier’s heart? Who’s the boy you could never get out of your head?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Richie shakes his head.

“But it does.”

Richie bites his lip hard before speaking up. “He’s someone that I didn’t even forget during those 27 years, not really. That’s how much of a hold he has over me. I couldn’t forget him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I used to have these dreams of him. He made me feel a way no one else could. I used to have these nightmares, too. I think one of them was a vision.”

“A vision?”

“I’d always see him dying. For me. And I could never save him.” Richie looks into Eddie’s eyes, sees that the brown hasn’t changed since they were 13 and decides to go for it. “Until I could. I could save him this time.”

“Richie?”

“What is it?”

“I’d die for you.”

Eddie doesn’t wait for Richie to answer, just surges up and kisses him. For a second, Richie doesn’t believe it’s actually happening. The feeling of Eddie’s lips against his is too much for him to handle, the unexpected roughness of his lips that’s so different than everything he’s imagined, but so much better, is almost too overwhelming.

Richie, of course, kisses back. Even if this is a dream, there’s no way he’d give up the chance to kiss Eddie. Their lips move together in a way that’s new but also oh so familiar. Like two people who grew up together and found their way back to each other. Like two people who have known so much about each other for so many years and had no use for all the information stored deep in their subconscious. Their lips move roughly, all these years of pent up feelings coming out in the form of this very kiss.

They pull away only when they need air.

“Me? Eddie, Eds, me?” Richie presses their foreheads against each other, he doesn’t want to spend another minute not breathing in the same air as Eddie.

“It’s always been you. Even when you were an insufferable teenager I wanted to strangle.” Eddie smiles, signaling that there’s no malice behind his words. “Somehow that just made me love you more.”

Richie never thought of himself as an easy crier but he really must have the record for the number of separate occasions of crying in a day. “God, Eds, I loved you so much. So goddamn much I couldn’t handle it. I was sure my body was going to explode one day.”

“Really? And here I thought it was just gonna explode from all that pent up crazy energy.”

“I carved our initials in the fucking kissing bridge.” Richie laughs out, finally being able to tell him after so many sleepless nights in high school of wanting to show him.

Eddie is now sporting similar tears on his cheeks.

“And I still love you. Shit, Eds, I could never stop loving you.”

A soft, quick kiss.

“I love you, too, Richie.”

Richie wants to scream as loud as he can from the roof top. Wants to yell about how the love of his life loves him back. Wants to brag that he really got the best person in the world to actually care about him. Wants to let the world know that they could never be as lucky as him.

They kiss again. This time with more vigor. They fall back onto Richie’s motel bed and get lost in each other. Eddie’s hand run up and down Richie’s bare chest, feeling every nook and cranny. Richie lets himself finally put his hands on the ass that was the subject of every wet dream in his teenage years. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind, in fact he pushes himself into Richie’s hands harder.

They kiss and they kiss and they kiss until their lips are raw and neither of them are wearing anything but their boxers. Their bodies are pressed against each other in every way possible, not a single piece of skin is not touching another. They are wrapped up in each other so tightly that there’s no way to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. Their lips are still pressed against each other’s in a soft kiss when they drift off to sleep.

Richie doesn’t think he’ll have nightmares anymore.


End file.
